When most people hear the word Gamification, they think of apps that attempt to turn boring things into a game. While digital experiences do lend themselves well for engagement design, Gamification expands far beyond your phone and your computer.
We love how this is reflected in the wide range of topics that are chosen for the Octalysis Certificate submissions.
Learning in Octalysis changed my way of thinking.
Arsham Navid
⚡ Speed Run Notes
- Certifications become meaningful through repetition of recognition. A single feature looks promotional. A regular cadence of features signals a living program. Readers develop trust in the cadence, and the certification's value grows proportionally.
- The audience for practitioner features is split — current practitioners, aspiring practitioners, and curious outsiders. Good features serve all three. Bad features address only the person being featured. Writing with the three audiences in mind multiplies the strategic value of each post.
- CD5 (Social Influence) done right in a community is contagious momentum. Each featured achievement lowers the barrier for the next person to pursue it. The momentum compounds as the community accumulates visible success. This is how tiny fields become durable ones.
- A certification program should publish more about what practitioners shipped than what they learned. Learning is private. Shipping is public. Programs that emphasize shipping produce more shippers; programs that emphasize learning produce more students. The first is the more valuable community.
- The deepest insight: practitioner profiles are the closest thing a framework has to a hall of fame. Halls of fame matter because they tell the next generation who came before. Every practitioner named is a signal that this path is real and navigable. Without the hall of fame, the path feels imaginary.
About the Creator of the Octalysis Framework
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Arsham‘s submission covers the user experience of a local coffee shop! Take a look at his presentation for inspiration on how to analyze and improve the user engagement of a non-digital experience.
After receiving feedback on his first submission, Arsham came back for round two and delivered!
His submission is now one of our favourite examples for the Octalysis Level 1 Certificate.
Congratulations, Arsham. Great job.
Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. I am grateful for your positive response. I have enjoyed receiving tips and instructions from you during this project.
Arsham Navid
Do you want to join a community of learners and bring your knowledge of Human-Focused Design to the next level?
Don’t hesitate to try out Octalysis Prime for free!
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- What is Gamification? Definition, Examples & Framework
- Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges & Leaderboards
- Top 10 Enterprise Gamification Examples
- 90+ Gamification Examples & Cases with ROI Stats
- The $1.06 Billion Octalysis Gamification Case Study